The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of a state law that added sales taxes to some items to benefit public transportation and cultural groups in metropolitan Denver without voter approval.

The ruling by the state’s highest court rejected a lawsuit from the TABOR Foundation, a taxpayer advocacy group that alleged the Regional Transportation District and a cultural district were violating Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which requires voter approval for any tax hike.

The lawsuit stemmed from a 2013 measure passed by lawmakers allowing the districts to collect taxes on items previously exempt from local sales taxes, such as candy, soft drinks, cigarettes and food containers.

The court ruled that the new taxes represented such a minor change to tax policy that they did not require voter approval.

“Legislation that causes only an incidental and de minimis tax-revenue increase does not amount to a ‘new tax’ or a ‘tax policy change,'” Justice William Hood wrote in the opinion. “Although TABOR restrains government, reasonableness tempers TABOR’s grip.”

The taxes were expected to generate $2.7 million annually for the Regional Transportation District, which is the largest public transit district in the state, and $250,000 for the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, an umbrella group for dozens of nonprofits. That’s less than 1 percent of their annual budgets.

RTD board member Chuck Sisk called the Supreme Court ruling a “common sense” one. He said it simply lifts the burden retailers had wading through complex and varied tax collection protocols, where some products are exempt while others aren’t.

“I look at this as being one of consistency in the way vendors are required to remit taxes,” he said. “I think it gets very confusing.”

But Penn Pfiffner, chairman of the TABOR Foundation, said he was disappointed in the ruling. The high court, he said, never precisely defined de minimis and came to a conclusion that defies reason.

“They seem to be saying that if you haven’t taxed something before and put a new tax on it, that it’s not a new tax,” Pfiffner said. “We disagree.”

In its court filings, the TABOR Foundation said it didn’t think millions of dollars’ worth of new tax collections amounted to a minor change. Under the Colorado Constitution, any “tax policy change directly causing a net tax revenue gain” requires voter approval. TABOR was passed by voters in 1992.

Jon Caldara, leader of conservative think tank The Independence Institute, said the ruling was one of a number the Colorado Supreme Court has made recently where it has allowed tax increases to move forward without a popular vote by calling the levy a fee — or categorizing it as something other than a tax.

“This Supreme Court despises the Taxpayer Bill of Rights,” he said. “This Supreme Court thinks nothing should go to the voters. What is it about consent that the Supreme Court is so scared about?”

Conservation Colorado, a political nonprofit that advocates for environmental policies, spent more than $4.6 million -- a record for the group — to help Democrats take the levers of state government this month.